Bear the Scars
by Kat Nightfox
Summary: Destiny bites and Merlin bears the scars.   Please take the following seriously. WARNINGS:Graphic Non-Con, Violence, Asphyxiation, Bloodplay, Verbal Abuse, Humiliation, dark!Arthur


**Warning:  
><strong>What follows is quite graphic, violent and downright twisted. Even I was appalled by some of it and I'm the one who wrote it! Proceed with caution and take all the listed warnings into account. If you want to skip the graphic parts, then read the "clean" version I've posted under the title "Destiny Bites". Read that way the story's not quite as coherent but it's a slightly gentler read for those of you who don't care for the ugly bits.

The story contains Graphic NON-CON, Violence, Asphyxiation, Bloodplay, Verbal Abuse, Humiliation, dark!Arthur

**Author's Note:  
><strong>The following story is for my friend **jissai1988** who read my story "Acceptance" and asked for an alternative ending where Merlin never becomes dark!Merlin and the Prince makes good on a promise he made to his friend. Instead of just rewriting the ending of the story though, I decided to rework it entirely but include the same "pivotal" paragraph that sparked the request for this fic in the first place.

**Bear the Scars **

by Nightfox

Merlin stood alone on the battlements, looking out over the ever-increasing sprawl that was Camelot, the capital city of a united Albion. Not for the first time, he contemplated the long drop to the ground below and wondered...would it even _work_? None of the other attempts to put an end to his suffering had ever managed to do the job. His thrice-damned magic had saved him every time, preserved him to fufill his _Destiny_. Gods how he hated that word. Hated the word with an intensity that burned almost as hot as it did for the life that word described, the life he'd been living since he'd first come to this stinking city at the tender age of sixteen.

How quickly his simple life had become complicated then. An innocent he'd been, so damn naive and trusting, so very malleable. He'd been unformed clay and almost everyone around him had taken greedy fingers to that clay to mold it to _their_ design. Arthur, Uther, Gaius and that great winged lizard with his shining promises of future glory.

He snorted at that. _Glory_, oh yes, his life had brought him so much of that. He swallowed then winced as the action stretched his still sore throat. Arthur had been even rougher than usual last night, his rage towards Guinevere's betrayal spilling over and filling the usual receptacle for his dark moods. How long had Merlin been fulfilling _that_ role now? It certainly seemed like his entire life.

Everyone had been right, Arthur _was _different from Uther. He didn't take his fears, rages and disappointments out on his people, oh no, he had Merlin for that. Had had him for that almost since the day he'd come to Camelot. The sorcerer had fantasized so many times what his life would now be like, what _he'd_ be like had he allowed Mary Collins' blade to pierce that miserable bastard's chest all those years ago.

They were pleasant fantasies. Perhaps he'd be a physician now, perhaps he'd have learned from Gaius the proper ways to channel his magic toward the healing arts. Perhaps he'd have drifted back out of the city and found a quiet place among the Druids and be living a peaceful life in harmony with nature. Perhaps he might have freed Freya and successfully run away with her. Perhaps they'd be living together even now, somewhere far from Camelot, raising magical children in happy obscurity.

However, he'd foolishly stopped that blade and plunged himself right into the heart of darkness. There was no peace, no quiet and certainly no happiness for him on this earth now. _This_ was his Destiny. He stood by the High King's side through every endeavor, every trial and every challenge that stood between Arthur and a united Albion. He smoothed the path, carried the burdens and protected the future of the entire nation. It was _his_ ordeal, _his_ task, _his_ quest to create the future that had been promised. It was not Arthur who'd done this, it was _Merlin_.

He understood his role in all of this even as he despised it. His narrow shoulders had supported the weight of the world, the womb of his magic had brought forth the glittering child of Destiny known to all as Albion. However, Destiny was a harsh mate, almost as harsh as the man she forced the warlock to serve. King Arthur, the shining beacon of everything that was good and bright, the champion of equality, chivalry and justice for everyone no matter their birth or circumstances. He extended those ideals to all, all except one. For no man can be entirely of the light and even the best of men need some place for their darkness to go, some outlet, some deep well to pour it into. Merlin was that vessel, the sacrifice of Albion, the recipient of all the King's corruption. He saw the shriveled blackness at the man's center, the withering canker that hid deep beneath the shrouding layers of good deeds and noble words.

Once, long ago, he'd loved that man. Loved him with every fiber of his being, each spark of his power and the last mote of his soul. He'd given everything to his golden god and that foul git had _taken_ it all. He'd consumed everything Merlin was and given nothing in return but pain, derision and torment. Oh he'd jealously guarded his favorite possession, never allowing him too far from his side, he'd taken the sorcerer and he'd _kept_ him, he kept him still.

Merlin could never have known what he'd allowed into his life when he opened his heart, his soul and his mind to the Prince all those years ago. He'd come from a life of love, where he'd been cherished and adored, first by his mother, then by his guardian, Gaius. Both had shown him nothing but affection, support and reassurance. They'd told him he was special even while they comforted him for having to hide that fact from the world. They'd sheltered him, emotionally coddled him and left him vulnerable so that when he'd given his heart, he was unprepared to have it carelessly consumed by a man who'd never been taught what love was. Arthur didn't understand the boon he'd been given, couldn't appreciate the precious nature of the emotion he'd never before been awarded and it was inevitable that, in his ignorance, he would break the gift that Destiny bestowed on him, the gift that was Merlin.

It wasn't that Arthur didn't _want_ love, he did. He craved it desperately. His life was so bereft of tender emotion that he'd reached out with grasping, greedy hands when it was offered. Avariciously, he'd torn at what was freely bestowed. He'd voraciously consumed Merlin's love, sucked his affection dry and never realized that the well needed to be replenished in order to continue to give. Arthur didn't know how to nourish or cherish, he knew not how to offer in order that one might continue to receive.

The sorcerer gazed out over the city he'd built with eyes unseeing, his attention turned inward. It was so very very long ago now but he remembered every single second of his life in Camelot with unnerving and unrelenting accuracy. Oblivion was just one more comfort he'd been denied over the years. His mind drifted to the night before.

* * *

><p>Arthur's hands were around Merlin's throat and his thick cock was sawing in and out of the mage's tight arse. How the man's body had never loosened up over the years was just one more mystery to both of them. A delightful puzzle for the King and a horrific one for the warlock. Both hands and cock were particularly vicious this night as the Royal's overwhelming rage spilled out and scorched the man he was pummeling into the royal bed.<p>

"That fucking cunt! I gave her everything! I lifted her from the filth of the earth and made her Queen of the fucking world! How dare she, how fucking dare she?"

The body clenched round his cock began to go limp in his grasp so he transferred the punishing grip of his hands from the sorcerer's throat to his shoulders and redoubled his efforts to drive his cock _through_ the slender man. He forced the fragile form to meet every cruel thrust of his loins, ignoring, as always, the lack of any reciprocation from the male beneath him. Tonight he was even so far gone as to take no delight in the mage's winces and pained whimpers, there was no crowing about the blood on his cock. There was only one thing fueling his raging possession of his most faithful companion on this terrible night.

"And him! I trusted him, that filthy traitor! He was my right hand, the First Knight of Camelot, that son-of-a-bitch! Fucking my wife behind my back in my own gods damned bed!"

The irony that the King himself fucked Merlin in that same bed on a near-daily basis was lost on him. The fact that it wasn't the Queen's bed and never had been just made the couple's exploit all the more bitter. It was an open act of contempt and defiance by the perfidious lovers. A deliberate slap in Arthur's face. The two of them were gone now, escaped, both far beyond the reach of the monarch's anger and so he took it out on Merlin, like he did everything else. It was after all, Merlin's purpose.

"I'll kill them! I'll fucking rip that bastard limb from limb and see that whore burned alive in front of the entire Kingdom!"

Again the mage cursed his magic for preserving his body as that of the virgin boy he'd been at age eighteen. Since he'd attained physical maturity, no injury was permanent, no alteration to his body lasting. No matter what trauma was inflicted on him, he remained smooth and unscarred. Only the injuries incurred before that remained with him. A palm-sized circle of darker flesh just under his breast-bone from Nimueh's fire and a few minor scars from an active childhood were the only enduring marks on his unaging, unchanging milk-white skin.

The mage's throat was swelling shut though the King had already removed his hands from his neck. He struggled to breath as the delicate tissues closed over in reaction to the repeated abuse. His magic would likely sustain him but he'd feel himself die before the fading spark would kick in and somehow preserve his flesh until it could heal. As he was dying he could feel his senses flare into a hyper-aware state. The lacerating burn of Arthur's too-wide cock in his dry and bloodied anal canal was unbearable. His magic doomed his body to _never _adjust to it's abuser. The sorcerer's perpetual virgin state was one of Arthur's greatest raptures, the man taking a sadistic and twisted joy in repeatedly taking the eternal-boy's "maidenhead".

The mage had long since been forced to swear not to use his power to ease his agony in Arthur's bed; the King took too much delight in his pain to allow the sorcerer to minimize his distress. After all, that perpetually youthful face was glorious when racked with torment. His beauty was incandescent when lit by suffering. The sight was one the King had treasured since the very first time he'd created it. He was addicted to it. He was jealously possessive of it as well. No one else would _ever_ be allowed to see Merlin like that, no hands but his own would ever bring that blinding radiance to exquisite life.

However, tonight even _he_ was blind to what usually brought him his most joyously corrupt pleasure. Tonight, Merlin was _nothing_ but a body to rut into, a fleshly substitute on which to vent his rage at the two who were out of reach. His teeth ripped into soft, snowy skin, his savagery only driven higher by the copper tang of the sorcerer's blood fizzing on his tongue. He clawed at the cock laying flaccid against the taut belly arching in agony beneath him. He savagely twisted and pulled on the delicate flesh of the scrotum beneath, crushing the fragile organs within and growling in satisfaction at the screams that he managed to force from the constricted throat of the warlock dying beneath him. With the tortured sound came his release and he poured his scalding hate into the helpless man trapped in his savage embrace. He collapsed next to the trembling, desperately wheezing form bleeding all over his bed and fell into an exhausted sleep within moments. He never even noticed when Merlin ceased breathing altogether.

* * *

><p>Merlin hitched the black scarf he wore higher around his neck for both comfort and protection. He knew most of the creamy length of his neck was marred with livid purple bruises from the King's hands as well as scabbed over wounds and bite marks in various stages of healing. He'd abandoned the neckerchiefs years ago, they just didn't hide enough of his skin. Now he wound long lengths of soft cloth close up under his ears and chin. He no longer wore the clothes of a peasant, it wouldn't have been proper for the Court Sorcerer to go about so attired but there were days he missed the domestic comfort of his old homespun clothes. The King dictated what he wore now and none of it was anything he'd ever have chosen for himself.<p>

Though he was uncomfortable in close fitting breeches and snugly tailored tunics, he'd unwillingly become accustomed to being thusly costumed, knowing there was no choice. In the early days of Arthur's reign, he'd tried to defy him over the issue only to find his own clothes removed from his chamber and the new attire hanging in his wardrobe instead. He _could_ have magicked the garments however he wished but it seemed a useless and futile gesture. After all, in the grand scheme of things, what did his clothing matter? _No _aspect of his life was anything he'd have chosen for himself.

His mind turned back again. This time to the _oath_, that pledge to never ease his own suffering at Arthur's hand. It was such a longstanding promise, one to which he was magically bound, his own power enforcing his obedience. However, though years and years had passed, the circumstances surrounding the vow's creation would never fade from his mind. Like every other pain filled memory, it's edges were as sharp as ever and they still had the power to slash him up inside when the anamnesis crept over his awareness.

* * *

><p>"Come on Merlin, suck me, that's right, swallow it down. Take it all you fucking little slut! Ahh!"<p>

Arthur's broad, strong hands were tangled in Merlin's raven-black hair and his fists were tearing soft, shining strands from a sore scalp as he wrenched the sorcerer's head back and sprayed his cum all over the flushed and panting boy struggling to catch his breath after spending the last several minute's choking on the Prince's thick cock. The sticky white pulsations painted the pretty, fragile features of the youth and Arthur shuddered in ecstasy at the picture presented to him.

He had Merlin kneeling on the hard oak floor of his chamber, his thickly muscled thighs bracketing the naked, lissome white body of the boy. The long, sinuous length of wiry muscle and beautiful jutting bones was bent back, pulled taut like an archer's bow, the point of tension Arthur's cruel grip on that soft ebony hair.

"You are so fucking pretty when you suffer for me!"

Merlin closed his eyes to try to hide the flash of gold across his irises as he attempted to cast a numbing spell over his skin but the Prince yanked on his hair again causing his eyes to fly open involuntarily.

"What. The. Fuck. Do. You. Think. You. Are. Doing? Hmmm?"

The gold flare died as Merlin lost his focus, hanging helplessly in the grip of the man he still loved but feared. Oh how he feared this Arthur!

"Answer me! Now! Merlin, tell me what the fuck you are trying to do?"

"Please! It hurts! I just don't want to hurt anymore! Please..."

"Oh but I like it when you hurt! You are so very beautiful when you twist in agony, my little whore. It pleases me. You live to please me, don't you Merlin? You must want to bring pleasure to the one you love! And you love me, don't you Merlin? You've loved me since we met, haven't you? Haven't you? Tell me!"

"Yes!" The cry was involuntary, unwilling, unwelcome. His heart was bleeding but it still beat for Arthur alone. He hated himself for it but he could never deny it to the man who owned his soul.

"You are going to promise me something, Merlin. You are going to make me an oath and you are going to bind it with your magic. You will vow to me now to never use your power to stop me taking my pleasure of you. You will never use your magic to block any sensation I give to you be it pleasure or pain. You will make yourself open to me in every way. Whether I make you cum, crying in delirious ecstasy or I make you writhe and bleed on my cock you will never, _ever_ screen a single touch, nor any response no matter what it is because it comes from _me_ and you belong to me and to no other."

Merlin whimpered and shook his head infinitesimally in negation, in pained defiance.

"You will swear it now and bind yourself to it Merlin or I _will_ take you to my father and have him burn you at the stake. Is that clear? You will submit to me fully or you will pay for it with your life! Because every day I know about your magic and I _don't_ turn you in to my father is another day I betray him for you. You are my friend, you have been loyal to me since the beginning but if I am going to risk myself for you, you are going to cease fighting me. Do you understand?"

The sorcerer shuddered in terror at the Prince's words. Not because he feared the flames so much but because he could see that Arthur meant what he was saying. He resented Merlin's magic, he resented that it's existence meant he was lying to his father and he was demanding the mage's full and ultimate obedience in return for the betrayal he felt he was committing on Merlin's behalf.

Already in pain and gripped by mind-numbing fear, Merlin acquiesced. Nodding his head as best he could while still being bent backwards by the grip on his scalp, his cobalt eyes met Arthur's cerulean gaze and saw that stare relax it's intensity.

"Now Merlin, make the vow and bind it."

"I swear that I will accept whatever pain or pleasure you bestow on me from this day forward. I will not try to block any sensation that comes from your hand..."

"Or my body or any extension thereof."

The sorcerer faltered for a moment but that azure gaze sharpened and hardened once again and Merlin found himself repeating the words.

"Or from your body or any extension of your person."

"Your body is open to me, it belongs to me and to me alone."

"My body is open to you, it is yours alone."

"For eternity."

"For eternity."

As the last words slipped from his tongue his sapphire eyes flared to molten gold, binding his soul to his promise.

He'd had no idea at the time just how long eternity would be, nor how cruel Arthur's attentions would become.

The Prince let go of his hair then and pulled him up into his lap. He arranged Merlin's long legs to his satisfaction, bringing them around his waist as he settled the sorcerer flush against his body, cocks pressed tightly together, his arms around the slender, pale youth. He nuzzled at the young mage's long throat, pressing soft kisses there.

His tender behavior was wildly out of character but it was a balm to Merlin's ravaged heart. He dared to hope that having given Arthur proof of his ultimate trust that the Prince would become the lover of his dreams, would whisper to him the words he so longed to hear, would finally love Merlin the way he loved Arthur.

It was the first time his golden god kissed him. Hungry pink lips devoured his own raspberry pout and he groaned in pleasure as the Prince's tongue sought out his own. His cock hardened between their bellies and he felt an answering swelling from Arthur's heated length despite his recent release. He felt callused thumbs against his sensitized nipples and mewled softly in response.

Long, slender fingers twined into golden hair and held on gently as the kiss became wetter, hotter, filthier. Arthur's coarsened palms and sword callused fingers were skimming down his taut and trembling belly and then sliding around his back and still lower. Those powerful hands cupped his small, firm buttocks and kneaded them with increasing roughness. A low growl rumbled from the tanned throat and suddenly Merlin found himself yanked up hard against the Prince's chest. He scrabbled at broad bronzed shoulders even as he felt his arse cheeks jerked unceremoniously apart and then he was being forced down, dry as dust on Arthur's barely moist cock.

He screamed and the Prince smiled, a wildly savage grin, all feral pointed teeth and sadistic glee. He licked the tears from Merlin's face before the mage was even aware they were pouring from his eyes. There was nothing but pain, searing hot, unendurable agony. He frantically tried to pull away, his instincts impelling him to fly but there would be no escape. Large powerful hands curled bruisingly around his narrow hips and pulled him back down. The drag of Arthur's cock-flesh in his tight, dry rectum was an unimaginable torment. His breath stuttered and failed as he struggled to cope with the tearing of his insides. He could feel the flood of blood, the moisture slicking the path for the invading weapon lodged so deep in the center of his body.

There was no awareness of the screams still ripping his throat raw. He thrashed helplessly in the grip of the sadistic Royal. That golden man he loved with all his being, the focus of his life, the owner of his soul was laughing, _laughing!_ His hips were bucking sharply and his fingers dug cruelly into satin sheathed bone, compelling the tortured youth to meet each savage thrust of his diamond hard prick. Then those sharp teeth were tearing at him, gnawing into the base of his throat, drawing blood, his tongue lapping up the hot, wet, salt-rich rivulets streaming scarlet over pearly pale skin.

Soft bone-white fists slammed ineffectually against tough sun-burnished skin. Pretty pouty lips gone deep scarlet from recent kisses and cock-sucking were twisted in a rictus of pure suffering. The pain was shooting from the core of his body sending white hot spears of anguish through every limb, up his spine, lodging thick and poisonous at the base of his skull.

It had gone on for eternity.

* * *

><p>Tears were tracking down his alabaster cheeks and he dashed them away with impatient hands. One would think that after all these years there couldn't possibly be any tears left in him. However, it seemed as if he had an eternal supply of the salinous lubricant; like his blood, his youth and his life-spark, he had been gifted with an overabundance of it. His sightless gaze shifted westward but he continued to register nothing before his eyes. His vision retained it's internal focus, drifting even further back, back to when everything had started to go wrong.<p>

* * *

><p>It was after Morgana. After they'd defeated her immortal army, after Merlin, Lancelot and Gaius had fought off Morgause and emptied the Cup of Life, spilling it's enchanted sanguineous contents across the floor of the council chamber. Arthur had been angry, so very very angry for what had been done to his father, his knights, his soldiers and his people. Merlin was there, as he always was and he loved Arthur. He had been unable to contain his solicitous emotions while observing his Prince's pain and had revealed too much by virtue of his actions. Arthur had finally caught on that Merlin's feelings went far beyond friendship.<p>

The Prince's first words on the subject had shattered and humiliated the young sorcerer.

"Merlin? You have got to be joking? Oh my Gods! You really _are_ a fucking girl, aren't you?"

"Sire?"

"You are, aren't you? You're fucking in _love with me_!"

The sorcerer's large blue eyes had widened in horror, his pupils dilating until only a thin glinting sapphire ring could be seen around them. His breathing had hitched and then he'd begun to pant in mortification. His silky white cheeks had flushed a painful and obvious red and for once his voice failed him.

"I...I...I don't...I don't know what you're on about!" However his voice had broken halfway through the declarative statement and he'd swung away from the blond haired man seated before him, intending to grab the Prince's washing and make a quick escape.

"_Merlin_! Get your little bottom over here, now!"

Cringing with shame, the warlock had slowly returned Arthur's side but was unable to meet the Royal's azure eyes. While he was staring intently at his boots he was made painfully aware of the Prince's amusement as the man began first to snicker then to laugh outright.

"My God Merlin! Do you even have a cock down there? Are you _actually_ the girl I've been calling you for years?"

He made a grab for the slender boy who saw the movement too late to dodge it. Merlin found himself being dragged forward by his belt, Arthur's other hand delving between his thighs to palm his cock through his baggy breeches. To his further mortification, the sorcerer hardened at the first brush of the Prince's fingers against his cloth swaddled cock.

"Well, you certainly have a man's equipment! Nice. Do you have a pussy under your balls Merlin?"

"What? No!"

However, Arthur already had his hands under Merlin's tunic and they were yanking his loose breeches down before the mage even managed to divine the Prince's intentions.

"Arthur! Stop it!"

"I want to see your pussy Merlin, don't you want to show it to me?"

He'd pulled Merlin around and then pushed him face-down over the table while the jeers fell from cruel lips. His gloved fingers were parting Merlin's arse cheeks and pressing against the tight puckered entrance to his body.

"There, see? I knew you had a pussy between your legs despite that big cock of yours!"

He let go of the wildly struggling boy laughing and laughing as if Merlin's reactions to his teasing were the funniest things he'd ever seen in his life. He watched with elation as the normally uncoordinated boy tried to wrestle his breeches back up while simultaneously backing away from the Prince. Of course it didn't work and he just wound up on his arse on the cold wood floor, his still hard cock bouncing around as he slammed down hard.

Arthur howled in glee.

"Merlin, I realize you want me to fuck you but really, there's no need to throw yourself naked at my feet!"

The taunting continued for weeks, the jeering and manhandling got worse and worse. Finally Merlin had found himself forced into giving the Prince first handjobs then blowjobs whenever and wherever the horny young Royal demanded them. And always the bastard would tease him, pouring out his derision for the sorcerer's feelings, using them against him, carelessly manipulating those feelings for his own casual pleasure. The humiliation was endless. However, amongst all the insults and mocking put-downs , one statement still haunted him to this day.

He'd been down on his knees, choking on Arthur's heavy cock as the Prince ruthlessly fucked his throat with long, deep thrusts. The man's thick, rough fingers were buried in his shiny black hair, using the sorcerer's soft locks as a handle to jerk the boy forward and back to match his rhythm. That's when he said it.

"I'm too good to you, Merlin. How many master's would fulfill their servant's dreams like I do? You're so lucky I can't marry Gwen until Father dies. Otherwise, you'd just go wanting, wouldn't you? You'd never get all this attention from your beloved, hmm? You'll never get enough, will you? You just fucking live for the taste of my cock don't you? Don't worry, I'm a good friend, I'll always let you have what you need from me, even when I do marry her. I'd never make you go without, you've served me too long and too well for that."

That's when Merlin realized there was no end in sight. Arthur _never_ intended to stop, ever.

Weeks later, after the first night of the mid-winter celebrations Arthur had raped his arse for the first time, brutally ripping into his virginity and calling the act a "present for my faithful friend." He laughed over and over as Merlin screamed and writhed on his rampant cock. The sorcerer was bent over the bed, a pillow shoved under his hips to raise his pretty bum high for the Prince's convenience.

He was made fully aware of Arthur's physical strength as he hauled the slimmer man around as if he was a child's toy. Balls deep inside him, he'd pulled the struggling boy's torso up against his own and latched onto one white shoulder with sharply pointed canines. He'd actually giggled when the action forced an additional wail of pain from the young man's already tortured vocal chords. He'd cum with Merlin's name on his lips, his seed scalding as it fountained inside the sorcerer's torn rectum and ran down to join the blood already streaking the backs and insides of his slender thighs.

The man had made good on his promise to "never make him go without" when he'd fucked a sobbing Merlin in his bed on the morning of his wedding to Gwen.

"Shh, shh! It's alright Merlin. You don't have to worry, I'm not going to stop giving you what you need. The wedding changes nothing. You'll see. No need to cry over it. She won't even be sleeping here, she has her own chambers." The mage had cried even harder and the newly crowned King had continued to fuck him through his tears.

The following night, Merlin was on his knees between Arthur's spread thighs taking the Royal Cock down his throat and nothing _had_ changed.

* * *

><p>The wind whistled harshly at the highest point of palace and sprawling city. He could see for miles from this vantage though, all the way to the curve of the horizon and all of it was Arthur's realm. The realm he'd given the man on a silver platter wrapped up with the blood red ribbon of his soul. When had his love died? He tried to remember the exact moment but there wasn't one. His affection and hope had been horribly steadfast, blind and mulishly stubborn. The hope went first, he knew that, even though it had been a drawn-out death, ridiculously so. Ludicrous, that's what it was. He was every inch the idiot that the prat of a prince had always called him.<p>

The love spun out even longer, the thread growing thinner and thinner as the years wore on but it held fast far longer than it had any right to. Finally one day it was all gone, the thread, micron thin for months, had simply vanished. It was not a relief, though it should have been. Instead there was nothing left behind but a gaping, empty void in his chest. A hole punched straight through bone and blood. Albion had already been united by then, Camelot the shining center of an empire of prosperity. With his destiny fulfilled and his love exhausted, Merlin had thought for a short time that he might leave, escape Arthur and finally find some peace. However, Kilgharrah had compelled him to consult with the Crystal of Neahtid, knowing that there would never be an escape for the hapless warlock.

He loathed that lump of rock. It showed him truths he never wanted to know. It showed him what would happen to Arthur and Albion should he ever leave. Without Merlin to absorb the poison of his dark heart, Arthur would turn the venom on his people and exceed his father in vile acts of evil just as he'd exceeded him in everything else. Without Merlin there to curb it, the corruption would spill out and poison everything it touched. His creation, his beloved Albion would be destroyed and all his suffering, all his heartbreak and anguish, all his mind-breaking work and the years of pain would be for naught. Arthur would take the realm apart piece by piece without the warlock by his side to temper the storm.

So for Albion and all the innocents she sheltered, Merlin stayed and willingly lay on the altar to become the sacrifice the realm required. Destiny had decreed it to be so. That bitch. That fucking cunt _Destiny_ bit and Merlin's soul bore the scars to prove it.

* * *

><p>Thanks so much for reading! <em>All<em> comments are welcome, I simply ask that you be polite.


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